Last month, Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Laporte granted summary judgment to plaintiffs and vacated the Bureau of Land Management’s notice that it was postponing certain compliance dates contained in the Obama BLM rule governing methane emissions on federal lands. If you’re a DOJ lawyer, it’s pretty clear your case is a dog when the Court enters summary judgment against you before you’ve even answered the complaint.

The case is pretty simple and the outcome should not be a surprise. BLM based its postponement of the compliance deadlines on § 705 of the APA, which authorizes agencies to “postpone the effective date” of regulations “when justice so requires.” However, every court that has looked at the issue has concluded that the plain words of the APA apply only to the “effective date” of a regulation and not to any “compliance date” contained within the regulation.

It seems clearly right to me. For Chevron geeks out there, I’ll note that the Court stated that, because the APA is a procedural statute as to which BLM has no particular expertise, its interpretation of the APA is not entitled to Chevron deference – a conclusion which also seems right to me.

What particularly caught my eye about the decision was the Court’s discussion of the phrase, “when justice so requires.” In a belt and suspenders bit of analysis, the Court also made findings that justice did not require postponement. BLM’s argument was that justice required the postponement because otherwise the regulated community would have to incur compliance costs. However, as the Court noted, “the Bureau entirely failed to consider the benefits of the Rule, such as decreased resource waste, air pollution, and enhanced public revenues.” Indeed:

If the words “justice so requires” are to mean anything, they must satisfy the fundamental understanding of justice: that it requires an impartial look at the balance struck between the two sides of the scale, as the iconic statue of the blindfolded goddess of justice holding the scales aloft depicts. Merely to look at only one side of the scales, whether solely the costs or solely the benefits, flunks this basic requirement. As the Supreme Court squarely held, an agency cannot ignore “an important aspect of the problem.” Without considering both the costs and the benefits of postponement of the compliance dates, the Bureau’s decision failed to take this “important aspect” of the problem into account and was therefore arbitrary.

I think I detect a theme here. Some of you will remember that Foley Hoag filed an amicus brief on behalf of the Union of Concerned Scientists, supporting the challenge to President Trump’s “2-for-1” Executive Order. We made pretty much the same arguments in that case that Magistrate Judge Laporte made here – minus the reference to the scales of justice.

Unless SCOTUS gets rid of all agency deference, the Trump Administration is going to get some deference as it tries to eliminate environmental regulations wherever it can find them. However, if it continues to do so while looking solely at the costs of the regulations to the business community, while ignoring the benefits of the regulations, it’s still going to have an uphill battle on its hands.

When President Trump issued his energy-related Executive Order in March directing further review by the EPA Administrator of, among other things, the Clean Power Plan, it signaled the death knell for what was arguably President Obama's centerpiece domestic action on climate change. But while the Order's likely intent to neutralize this and other rules would have appeared to pave the way for a flurry of lawsuits filed by environmental groups and States particularly concerned about global warming, the federal dockets have thus far been somewhat quiet with respect to the Trump Administration's handling of prior climate change-related rulemaking.

A group of 10 states have begun to push back, though, by filing a petition in the Second Circuit. The rule that is requested to be reviewed? It doesn't involve coal-fired power plants. Nor wellpads or compressors. Rather, the petition involves rulemaking aimed at the ominous ... ceiling fan. The rule, enacted by the Department of Energy in January, establishes minimum energy efficiency standards for fans manufactured after January 2020 pursuant to the Energy Policy and Conservation Act. According to the DOE, the rule is projected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by over 200 million tons and methane emissions by 17 million tons through 2049. Some 12 days after the rule was finalized, DOE delayed the effective date by 60 days with the stated intent of conducting further review and consideration of new regulations, consistent with the Freeze Memo. In March, DOE subsequently pushed back the effective date even further until September, with the basis being that DOE Secretary Rick Perry was, perhaps unsurprisingly, unable to accomplish the review and consideration of the rule within the 60-day timeframe. Additional energy efficiency rulemakings finalized but not published under the Obama Administration currently remain unpublished.

The significance of the lawsuit is not so much about its substantive impact on climate change. After all, the projected GHG reductions under the ceiling fan rule are only a small fraction of those projected as part of the Clean Power Plan, which itself left some wondering whether it could meaningfully affect climate change on a global level. Further, the Clean Power Plan’s vitality was already in question following the Supreme Court’s stay. Rather, the petition carries broader implications for the Trump Administration's apparent strategy of stalling, as opposed to directly revising or withdrawing, environmental rulemaking that it fundamentally opposes. The strategy is not a wholly illogical one, especially considering the possible legal and practical limitations that some commentators have expressed the Administration might initially face if it were forced to provide, on-the-record, a definitive basis for full-fledged withdrawal of notable climate change regulations.

One of the key figures for the petitioners, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, has contended that the DOE's delays violate the Administrative Procedure Act in that they constitute a substantive revision to a final rule without going through proper notice and comment. He is joined by nine other states (California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Washington) as well as New York City. If the petitioners prevail, it will likely force EPA and other agencies to confront existing rulemaking head-on, and would otherwise challenge the viability of President Trump's energy-related Executive Order, including associated OMB guidance for implementation of the rule review procedures. Further pressure could also come as a result of a challenge to the so-called “2-for-1” Executive Order, which environmental groups have claimed also directs arbitrary repeal of rulemakings. But until then, neither industry nor environmentalists should be surprised if climate change or other significant environmental regulations carried over from the Obama Administration remain in an infinite loop of administrative review.

American College of Environmental Lawyers, The ACOEL, is a professionalassociation of lawyers distinguished by experience and high standards in the practice of environmental law, ethics, and the development of environmental law.